Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure, for example, relates to wireless communication systems, and more particularly to synchronization signals for multiple radio access technologies.
Description of Related Art
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code-division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time-division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) systems.
By way of example, a wireless multiple-access communication system may include a number of base stations, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, otherwise known as user equipments (UEs). A base station may communicate with UEs on downlink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a base station to a UE) and uplink channels (e.g., for transmissions from a UE to a base station). A wireless communication system may include base stations that provide wireless communication using one, or more than one radio access technologies (RATs), or operation modes. Operation modes within a single RAT may have different physical parameters.
When a UE first attempts to connect to a base station, the UE will traditionally know the RAT it expects to communicate on. For example, the UE may tune to a channel and attempt to detect a first RAT (e.g., long term evolution (LTE) RAT). If the first RAT is not detected, the UE may attempt to detect a second RAT (e.g., a global system for mobiles (GSM) RAT). The UE will continue this process for each known RAT until the UE eventually detects an available RAT and connects to the base station. This time and power consuming process may be particularly demanding in certain deployment scenarios where different RATs are used. For example, when a UE is first powered on in a new location, the UE may not be aware of which cellular infrastructure (e.g., RAT) is deployed in the new location. Therefore, the UE may be forced to try and detect numerous RATs before finally detecting an available RAT.